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Nerd Lunch Episode 54: Give it a Chance 2: Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Posted in books, monsters, podcast, TV shows, vampires with tags books, Nerd Lunch Podcast, podcast, podcasts, pop culture, TV shows, vampires on September 25, 2012 by Paxton

We have arrived at Episode 54 of the podcast. This week we return to a previous topic called Give It A Chance. We first did this topic back in Episode 24 in which we gave anime a chance and we had Shawn Robare as our guide. This week Jen Usellis (Episode 11) returns to the fourth chair to guide the three of us geeky guys through the world of Sookie Stackhouse. That’s right, the three of us read Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris, the first Southern Vampire Mystery and the genesis of the TV show True Blood.

Jen guides us through the gothic horror romance genre and teaches us all a thing or two about why this series is so popular. We mostly discuss the book, but there is a part at the end in which we discuss the first few episodes of the TV show starring Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse.

We learn this week that two of the three of us have watched the show and that two of the three of us hate the vampire called “Bubba” in the novel. We also learn that vampire Bill has a stupid name and is a “black hole of charisma”.

Lots to learn, lots to hear in this episode. Download it from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner.

Or, listen to it within your browser here.

Nerd Lunch Episode 51: Does it live up to the hype? Part 2

Posted in fast food, movies, podcast, TV shows with tags movies, Nerd Lunch Podcast, podcast, podcasts, pop culture, TV shows on September 4, 2012 by Paxton

AND WE ARE BAAAAAAACK!!! After a few weeks off the Nerd Lunch crew is back kicking holes into your eardrums. This week we are doing a sequel to Episode 7: Does it live up to the hype?

Breaking Bad

In this episode we are joined by Brian from Cool and Collected and show runner for The League of Extraordinary Bloggers. We each pick something that we haven’t seen or done that has been hyped to us by friends, family and pop culture in general and we watch it. Or do it. Or eat at it. My choice was the TV show Breaking Bad. Brian picked Star Trek, CT picked Quentin Tarantino movies and Jeeg picked Chik-Fil-A. Listen up to the discussion to find out if we thought our picks “lived up to the hype”. Spoiler alert, there are more “NO”s than you would expect.

Download this episode from iTunes or listen to it on Feedburner.

Or, listen to the audio right here in your browser.

Bionic Reviews: Cyborg #2 – Operation Nuke by Martin Caidin (1973)

Posted in Bionic Man, books, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows with tags Bionic Review, Book Report, books, pop culture, reviews, Six Million Dollar Man, SMDM Book, TV shows on August 27, 2012 by Paxton

This is an ongoing feature where I read, watch and review books, comics and TV shows featuring The Six Million Dollar Man and Bionic Woman. Click the Bionic Review banner to see the Bionic Review archive page. Click the smaller banner to see only those specific reviews.

One year after Cyborg, in 1973, Caidin released his followup Steve Austin novel, Operation Nuke.

Cyborg 2

The original hardcover release is on the left. At this point, the original book was being adapted into the first The Six Million Dollar Man TV movie. As you can see, the paperback cover for this book on the right follows the same design as the later cover for Cyborg with Lee Major’s face and the mention of the TV show at the top. By the time this book hit paperback, The Six Million Dollar Man had three TV movies and was beginning its regular season run.

Cyborg 2 Operation Nuke

This is a good 70s “spy novel” but it’s not a great Bionic Man (or Cyborg) novel. Literally, Steve Austin doesn’t use any of his superhuman bionic abilities until like page 135 (of 175 pages). And he doesn’t use them again after that either. Also, at the beginning of the novel, when he’s getting his assignment, he is asked how much he knows about nuclear devices. Steve says that he had to actually build a nuclear device for one of his instructional classes with the military. This is very convenient considering the plot. And for something he did so long ago, the book makes Steve out to be a nuclear physicist with intimate knowledge of the inner workings of all nuclear bombs. That got old after a while.

Steve Austin spends most of this book infiltrating a criminal military organization in order to find out who is the leader and where they are getting their nuclear weapons. A task that doesn’t require the use of any bionic limbs. He finally uses his bionics at the end of the book when he has to carry a nuclear device from one room to another and he manages to disarm that device despite not ever seeing the insides or how it was built.

So, this was a less than satisfactory story if you are coming in expecting bionic action like the first novel. Even for a regular 70s spy novel it leaves a little something to be desired. Another thing that makes it tough to read is Caidin’s writing style. Caidin tends to describe things a lot. He may start off a chapter or section of a chapter by talking about certain objects or the surrounding environment and it’ll take a page and a half before people start talking or some action pertaining to the story happens. It causes the reader to “skip ahead” a bit to get things moving. So, all in all, this was a very disappointing book. Hopefully the next book will deliver more bionic goodness.

My Ultimate Saturday Morning TV Schedule

Posted in cartoons, TV shows with tags Bionic Woman, cartoons, He-Man, Knight Rider, pop culture, Six Million Dollar Man, TV shows on August 23, 2012 by Paxton

New assignment for the League this week. And it’s another doozy of a topic.

You’ve been hired to program the ultimate Saturday morning experience for kids across the nation–create your own ideal Saturday morning cartoon schedule.

Unfortunately for the TV network that hired me, I hid a clause within my contract that specifies I’m in charge of ALL Saturday programming. Not just the morning hours. Queue the look of horror from the network execs. That’s right, everyone at the network, prepare your faces for Cavalcade TV.

Cavalcade TV

I’ve programmed an entire broadcast day with badass awesome shows designed to melt your brain and impregnate your wife. So step back and prepare your face, chest and wife’s uterus for an invasion. An invasion of pop culture awesomeness.

The broadcast day starts at 6am with:

Tiny Tunes
6-8am – Looney Tunes/Tiny Toons – For this 2 hour block I would show various episodes of Warner Bros Looney Tunes and Tiny Toons. I’d probably use the 6-7am hour for the former and the 7-8am hour for the latter. These are all classically awesome cartoons and I feel they are essential to start the day off right. I’d probably also include the Loony Tunes/Bugs Bunny movies (Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, 1001 Rabbit Tales, Fantastic Island, Quakbusters, etc).

8 – 9am – He-Man and the Masters of the Universe/Dungeons & Dragons – This is sort of the “fantasy hour” I guess. Two of my favorites, back to back.

9 – 11am – Super Hero Block
– 9 – 10am – DC Super Friends – During this first hour I would rotate a bunch of the old, pre-WB DC cartoons; Super Friends, New Adventures of Batman, Ruby Spears Superman, Plastic Man and The Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure.
– 10 – 11am – Marvel Super Powers – In this second hour I would rotate old Marvel cartoons; Spider-man and his Amazing Friends, The Incredible Hulk (1982), Fantastic Four (various series from the 60s and 70s).

11am – 1pm – Monster Block – I love monster based stuff. Especially cartoons. For this 2 hour block I’d rotate through some of my favorite monster based cartoons; Teen Wolf, Fangface, Drak Pack, Gravedale High, Groovie Goolies.

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Movie Manathon: Freddy Krueger, Crystal Meth and high tech space prisons

Posted in movies, reviews with tags Freddy Krueger, Movie Manathon, movies, reviews, TV shows on August 20, 2012 by Paxton

Steph went to visit her parents last week, so I took the time to watch several movies and TV shows she wants nothing to do with. I’ve done this several times before, check out some previous movie manathons here.

The wife’s away, so Pax will play. Let’s start with the movies I watched.

Lockout (2012) – Starring Guy Pearce, Maggie Grace and Peter Stormare. I was surprised how much I enjoyed this. Good action, quick dialogue. Pearce is wonderfully sarcastic. Loved it. My only issue is that Maggie Grace is terrible. I just do not like her and she continues proving to me that she can’t act with every movie she’s in.

Chronicle (2012) – I think of this as “that super hero Facebook movie” because it was advertised so heavily on “the book”. I was well aware of it but I hadn’t really heard a lot about it specificially. But the premise sounded great and I knew my wife would never watch it so I got the Blu-Ray from Netflix and popped it in the PS3. And it’s AWESOME. Wow, I didn’t expect it to be this good. This is how I imagine it would actually happen if teens received super powers. And the movie gets pretty dark at the end. I also like that it’s essentially a “found footage” movie which adds a bit of realism. If you like super hero movies, this is definitely a different take on them. Give it a shot, I think you’ll like it.

Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) – Starring Jackie Earl Haley as Freddy. For some reason I keep thinking of this movie receiving a lot of hate from fans. I’m not sure why. Is the movie perfect? No. But neither is 9/10 of the entire Nightmare franchise. This movie is good and I like Haley’s performance. I like how they fleshed out Freddy a little more and made him less jokey with only 1 one-liner. The effects were spectacular as well. The movie looked gorgeous.

Paranormal Activity 2 (2010) – Saw the first one and loved it, so I decided to check out the second one since Steph doesn’t like horror movies. And it’s good. These “found footage” movies I really love. I do. They are actually pretty scary. I think they are scarier than something like Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th because they feel more “real”. Screw that torture porn crap like Saw and Hostel, these movies like Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch and Fourth Kind really creep me out (Blair Witch not so much any more). I started watching it one evening and actually had to turn it off to watch it the next afternoon. It’s pretty creepy. The “found footage” genre gets a lot of crap for some reason probably because it’s more of a creepy factor than out and out gore and kills. It’s a slow, suspenseful burn. I’ve even heard The Atomic Geeks say the genre is played out which is retarded because there are way more superhero, time travel or fantasy movies than there are “found footage” movies and none of those other genres are considered played out. I thought this movie was well done.